Café HAG


Café HAG is a worldwide brand of decaffeinated coffee currently owned by Jacobs Douwe Egberts.

History

The company was founded in Bremen in 1906 as Kaffee-Handels-Aktiengesellschaft. The founder was Ludwig Roselius, who codeveloped the first commercial decaffeination process. Alfred Runge and Eduard Scotland designed posters and packaging, and are credited with designs that defined the company.
In the 1920s and 1930s the company was known for the publication of the Coffee Hag albums of heraldic emblems.
The coffee brand Sanka spun off from Kaffee HAG in 1910 for the French market, and American rights to the Sanka name were sold in 1913.
The Kellogg Company purchased Roselius's American branch in 1928, then sold it to General Foods in 1939. General Foods acquired the original German company in 1979. In 1990 Kraft Foods merged with General Foods, thus HAG and Sanka became brands of the American company. The spelling Café HAG was standardized in the 1990s. HAG has been owned by Jacobs Douwe Egberts since 2015.
Café HAG TV adverts were popular in the 1980s; in particular the character Klaus became something of a cult figure among advertisement aficionados.